


Feanorian Week 2017: A.K.A., I Don't Have Time for This

by Kenzie_Perth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Feanorian week, FeanorianWeek, I don't know what I'm doing, I will fix everything, M/M, Tags to be added, but not before I end up breaking it first., series of One-shots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-08 10:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10384254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenzie_Perth/pseuds/Kenzie_Perth
Summary: Feanorian Week 2017Day One: Maedhros, Dreams.Day Two: Maglor, Remembrance.Day Three: Celegorm, Beauty and StrengthDay Four: Caranthir, TimeDay Five: Curufin, ParenthoodDay Six: Amrod, DutyDay Seven: Nerdanel, Home





	1. Maedhros: Dreams

The light of Laurelin makes the grassy hill glow like hot metal at his father’s forge and Maëdhros isn’t paying attention to the striking picture it makes in the slightest. His eyes are on the face of the boy lying on his stomach next to him, on the brilliant glow of his eyelashes in the light, the glint of gold in his braids, the sloping line of his throat as he laughs. Fingon is illuminated by Laurelin and perhaps it is a little heretic to think the golden tree’s light pales in comparison to Fingon’s smiles, but Maëdhros laughs a little inside at the thought anyways. (He’s not sure how old he is; the days seem to get lost in the golden haze that permeates every corner of this dream that is his existence.)

(Maëdhros thinks of the light disappearing, of bitter, biting blackness and shivers and shoves the thought away.)

“Maitimo!” says Fingon, eyebrows twisting.

Maëdhros looks up, flushing, and realizes that he’s been caught staring. Fingon merely tips his head and smiles a bit, and says,

“Are you even listening?”

Maëdhros shifts to his side so he can face Fingon, who raises an eyebrow expectantly at him.

“Even Olorín would have trouble paying attention to you with the amount you talk!” he teases, red-faced, voice cracking with embarrassment.

Fingon mock-gasps, and rolling on his side, playfully shoves Maëdhros. He opens his mouth to speak and Maëdhros leans forwards a bit, anticipating, but the voice that leaves Fingon’s mouth is hypnotizing and invasive like a beast that wraps itself around Maëdhros’ head.

“Who’s Fingon?”

Maëdhros starts awake to pain and darkness, wincing as his bruised muscles protest the movement and locking eyes with the beautiful, insidious creature sitting across from him on a crude stone bench.

Sauron rests his finely-built jaw on a long-nailed hand.

“You were calling his name in your sleep.”

Maëdhros says nothing, turning his eyes away from that burning yellow gaze and ignoring the dull throbbing behind his eyes that Sauron’s presence brings.

“Well,” says the Maia, standing, “since you’re awake, let’s begin again.”

As he walks across the uneven floor to Maëdhros, the shadows surrounding him lengthen until they writhe like some great cloak of darkness that dances and burns dark against his hair, which is a bonfire that licks the walls of the room and matches his terrible eyes. The air itself suffocates under the heavy presence, choking on ash and smoke.

Maëdhros squeezes his eyes shut.

(“Take him outside,” he hears Sauron say through the darkness and the pain much later on. The next time he wakes up fully, it is dangling off a cliff in cold, biting air, cuffed there by a single chain.)

………

Maëdhros is dreaming again, he’s pretty sure. He’s sitting on the same hill, watching the golden light of Laurelin mix with the silver of Telperion, watching molten silver make its way across the sky as it chases the brilliant gold.

The weight of Fingon’s head is heavy on his shoulder, the warmth of his body next to Maëdhros’ burning, the soft sound of his breathing overtaking every bit of Maëdhros’ hearing.

The wind blows through Maëdhros’ hair, ruffling it gently and sending Fingon’s gold-laced braids tapping against Maëdhros’ arm.

If this is a dream, the warrior thinks quietly, he’s not sure if he ever wants to wake up.

“Hey Maitimo.”

The words startle Maëdhros out of his thoughts, looking down on the elf who he thought was asleep.

“Maitimo.” Fingon says again, and this time his voice sounds closer. “Wake up.”

The light of the two trees begin to fade, as does the warmth of Fingon next to him, the solid ground beneath him. Maëdhros struggles, trying to go back to the dream, but his mind drags him up out of sleep.

It’s like breaching the surface of a lake, feeling the cold of water in the air, feeling too heavy after the weightlessness of swimming.

But the voice comes again, pulling him fully out of the haze of mind-sleep, and it cannot be, because he is no longer dreaming, but…

“Maitimo,” says Fingon, who is kneeling on Maëdhros’ right side, gold-braided hair swinging as he peers anxiously at Maëdhros’ scarred face, “are you awake?”

And the warrior remembers, remembers being trapped on the cliff, remembers the rescue and the flight on the back of an Eagle of Manwë, remembers many hands and concerned faces and voices and healers and being pushed down into a bed with too many pillows and blankets and told to sleep, to rest, to heal.

“I’ve brought a healer.” Fingon beams when he sees Maëdhros’ eyes shift to his face, and it’s a sight that Maëdhros has been starved of for so long that he wishes Fingon wouldn’t move, would just stay there forever so he could keep reassuring himself that this wasn’t a dream, that Fingon had really come for him, that he was safe, or as safe as a son of Fëanor could be.

But Fingon moves, much to his disappointment, and is replaced with the face of a dark-haired elven healer, who begins unwrapping the bandages on Maëdhros’ wrist. Pressure on his remaining hand has him looking up, and there is Fingon again, smiling gently, and Maëdhros thinks maybe they will get through this all right after all.


	2. Maglor: Remembrance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's day two and I'm already regretting this.

Maglor walks along the beaches, the sea spray crusting his hair with salt, making his voice rough and torn even as he endlessly sings. It has been a long time since he has seen the face of his brothers, of his parents, of even another Noldo elf.

Sometimes, he’s worried he’ll forget them. 

So even as he walks, even as the skin on his feet wears slowly down over the miles of jagged stone, even as his hair grows steadily more crystallized with salt and his skin weathered and tan, he carefully goes over every moment in his memory, the painful and the beautiful alike. 

His feet are beginning to bleed again through the bandages he’s wrapped around them, so Maglor pauses to sit on a smooth-worn rock and remember.

…….

“Ada!” Elrond said brightly, tugging his gloved hand and pulling him intently towards Nelyo. “I found Amad!”

Maglor sighed, shaking his head fondly. Nelyo had attempted to stop the twins from calling the Fëanorians that, but Maglor was a bit more inclined to allow them otherwise; Nelyo and Maglor, after all, had stolen their parents from them. He just wished that the twins would stop calling him mother. 

As Maglor watched his red-haired brother be dragged down by the high-energy pair, he allowed himself a little bit of amusement at his brother’s inability to deal with children.

…….

Maglor sighs, standing slowly, feeling the endless years of wandering in his bones, and then keeps walking.

He does not stop until a storm gathers and forces him to find shelter, three days later, in a damp cave that is nevertheless a step up from weathering the howling wind and lashing rain. Far out in the sea, Maglor watches a fishing boat expertly navigate the waves.

An hour later, he is unconscious in the dead-sleep of humans brought on by sheer exhaustion. 

……

Maglor watched the proud-sterned boat sail into the West and leaned a little more on Elrond, who was barely hiding the tears rising behind his eyelids.

Elros had made his decision, and while his brother and Maglor and Nelyo (though he would be hard-pressed to admit it) would miss him terribly, they were also all so very proud.

The three waited there through the sunset until the ship was no longer visible even to elven eyes and the night was growing old, Nelyo’s heavy arm on Maglor’s back and Elrond’s face buried in his shoulder, a family protecting their son. 

Eventually, though, Maglor stood up, nudging Elrond up as well.

“We should be back,” he said, suddenly very tired and very old.

They walked to their lodgings in silence.

……

The storm passes in another two days, a day before the last of the lembas Maglor received from a sympathetic wayfarer runs out. It’s a two-day walk to the Gray Havens, which is the closest elf haven.

Maglor knows he will be fine; this isn’t the first time he’s gone without food, and a single day is barely even noticeable at this point. Still, it is best not to tarry any longer than necessary, and as soon as he packs up his possessions, which consist of a tattered scarf, a quarter loaf of lembas, a ring with the symbol of the house of Finwë, and a handful of dwindling First Age coins, he is on his way.

Something in the air seems brighter and hopeful, despite the destruction that the storm has wrought. As Maglor walks over a fallen tree, he thinks that it feels like something fundamental has shifted, and a shadow that had fallen over the land has lifted.

(Around his neck hangs a locket with two curls of dark hair in them; Maglor insisted on taking them before Elros had chosen his path for certain, hands barely shaking as he clipped a lock from behind each of the boy’s ears. He has never taken that locket off since, not even in his darkest, despairing moments when he destroyed the portraits that Curufin had painted so many years ago and so many other precious things he now regrets.)

……

It is quiet in the Gray Havens; even the dull roar of the sea seems to be muted, and the lively chatter of elves of all different backgrounds is oddly distant. Maglor fully intends for this trip to be no longer than a day; he cannot stand the sight of the proud lily-white boats that sail into the West; looking at them brings back memories that choke his voice and make his words scatter. 

He is halfway through the city, a building and a half away from the path that will lead him back to his exile when a familiar voice catches his attention.

It could not be, but it sounds so very like it used to…

Heart in his throat, breath catching, Maglor turns to see Elrond Peredhil standing tall and proud. His back is turned but his stance is unmistakable, and his chastising voice is as well. Two tall elves (twins!) face him, looking abashed, but upon seeing Maglor, quickly seize the opportunity to escape a lecture.

Maglor sort of wobbles when they run past him, and he definitely wobbles when Elrond turns his gaze on him. He’s suddenly acutely aware of the unkempt state of his rather short hair and how pathetic his clothes must look, seeing as they’ve lasted him through much of the Third Age. 

But Elrond’s face softens from the severe lines it’s aged into, and he steps forwards, first a little, then more quickly until he is arms-length away from Maglor. His eyes search the face in front of him, seemingly reassuring himself that the elf isn’t just a vision before he folds a very surprised Maglor in a hug in the manner of men.

Maglor’s hands sit awkwardly in the air for a moment before settling on Elrond’s back, and the warmth that surges through him is enough to bring him to silently weeping on his son’s shoulder.

When he has collected himself enough to pull back, Elrond is smiling gently, his hands still holding onto Maglor’s shoulders, which is good because if not Maglor isn’t sure if he would run from this dream that he doesn’t deserve or not. 

“Ada,” Elrond says gently, his eyes gleaming, “I have something to tell you.”

With a smile that seems to be barely contained, he continues. “I had a vision, Ada; nearly a year ago, a messenger of Manwë visited me.” He takes a breath, and with great deliberation, says, “He allowed that, due to petitioning on your family’s part, particularly your cousins, and in recognition of your repentance, your exile has been rescinded, should you choose to journey with my family and I to the Western shores.”

Maglor’s head is spinning, and there’s a hot sort of joy coursing through him that makes his-sea numbed fingers long for something to spill their brilliant wonder into, a harp or a violin or anything. But he manages to smile back, and says, “Tell me more.”

……

A week later, as he sits near the prow of the ship, staring at the never-ending night sky of constellations, Maglor remembers the last final moments with his brother, the haze that clouded the mind that the Silmarils had created, the despair of watching his last sibling take the final few steps to his doom, into that fiery heat which still burns his face when he closes his eyes, and for the first time it very nearly doesn’t hurt. Maglor looks out over the net of stars reflected in the glass-like sea, hears the gentle lap of the waves as the boat continues its steady path to the Undying Lands, and smiles gently.

For the first time in too many years, he is coming home.


	3. Celegorm: Beauty and Strength

Celegorm slid the last hairpin into place, smiling with satisfaction when his hair remained secure after he removed his hands.

It was considered a bit disgraceful to wear all of one’s hair pinned up by Noldo society’s standards, but an exception was made for the Hunters of Lord Oromë. Beauty and all was important in day-to-day life, but having long hair kept unbound when it came time for the chase was incredibly unwise. (Sometimes, the very youngest acolytes of Oromë tried leaving it loose on their first hunt; none ever made that mistake a second time.)

Some of the most devoted hunters even cut their hair to a scandalously-short chin length, a hairstyle that traditionally only the very young wore. Celegorm was a bit too vain for that, but he respected the elves’ dedication to their calling. 

No, Celegorm was far too aware of his own beauty to despoil it like that, even if it was remarkably freeing to braid his hair up and pin it into place and off of his neck. 

After slinging his bow around his shoulder and clasping the dark-green cloak around his throat, the hunter finally picked up a pair of light leather boots, regarding them for a moment before quickly slipping them on.

Generally, elves wore no shoes at all; there was no need, no danger to step on, and their skin was tough enough to handle nearly everything anyways. 

Hunting, Celegorm had found, was a bit of a different matter. The night after his first hunt, he ended had up in Maglor’s care with a piece of bone the length of his thumb half-stuck in his sole.

With a whistle, Huan leaped forwards to greet his master, and with a couple of bounds, the pair was out of sight. 

……

There was no delicate beauty here, none that Celegorm could appreciate, just the strength of his body, the searing thrill of the hunt, and the feeling of freedom.

The huge stag below tossed its head nervously, clearly sensing the danger. On the branch of the tree across from Celegorm, his fellow hunter tensed, his eyes gleaming and a grin splitting his face. With a silent count to three, the two leapt out of their cover at the same moment, startling the stag and cuing the rest of the party to begin the chase.

……

Later, as Celegorm stood still spattered with the blood of his prey, watching the body of the massive deer be given the proper thanks and then cut up and divided among the hunters, he decided he could see the beauty in this as well. 

There was a relationship between beauty and strength, between predator and prey, that was so deeply fundamental it moved his bones to think of it.

And Celegorm knew, in his marrow, he was the predator. So laughing, he walked past Oromë, pulling his knife out and joining his fellow hunters.

……

Too many years later, Celegorm stood in front of the mirror again, scarred hands shaking a little as he pulled up his hair for the fourth time into a twist.

A snarl left his throat when it came tumbling back down, and a with a fluid movement, he grabbed the dagger from his belt and sheared the majority off, hacking and pulling until it was nearly even at his jawline.

The elf who stared back in the mirror was barely recognizable, though his body had been renewed entirely. His eyes were too dark, too old, and his shoulders were hunched in a stance that was too weary and fragile. 

Celegorm shook his head, and quietly slipped on his leather boots.

……

This time, Celegorm stood back from the final kill, watching silently as the other hunters brought down the doe with precise, quick strikes so as to ensure a quick death.

A spray of blood from an artery hit his cheek, and just for a second it was no longer the blood of his quarry but the blood of kindred. Celegorm flinched, took a deep breath in and a great sigh out, and turned quietly to observe from behind his Lord.

Now that his veins were no longer burning with the thrill of the chase and the kill, he could see the expression on Oromë’s face, and was suddenly reminded as to exactly how the Vala of the Hunt bore both the eyes and the teeth of a predator and the antlers of prey. 

Beauty and strength, Celegorm had begun to realize, were not so contradictory after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ughhh


	4. Caranthir: Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alllll the angst
> 
> allll of it
> 
> Music for this:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4TPwfZSY4Q

Sitting by the bed of his dying wife, holding her paper-skin hand, Caranthir allowed himself to soften a bit.

He knew that out of his terrible, glorious family, he had the hardest features and the prickliest personality. He knew that the hard planes of his bones were intimidating as they were distantly beautiful. Very few things in his life had allowed him to melt out of his statue-like existence, and one of them was lying on the bed across from him, breath rattling in and out with each faltering rise of her chest.

Haleth, who had managed to keep her olive skin, though it became more wrinkled by the day, her hair stubbornly clinging to the last bits of color, was still beautiful, he thought, even if other humans didn’t share his belief. Aging, to elves, was an amazing phenomenon because for them, beyond their hundredth year, elves didn’t change in the slightest. Time didn’t touch them. 

Watching Haleth age had been an honor and a privilege and a nightmare all at once; most elves didn’t bother with making friends with the Edain, far too aware of how quickly they burned out and disappeared. Caranthir had made the mistake of falling in love with one of them.

Not for the first time, Caranthir stared down at the dichotomy of his own strong hands and the fragile, wrinkled one that rested in them. It seemed so odd, to have such similar species that in the end were so different in that one would never end and one would all too soon.

Eighty or a hundred years was such a very short time; it was certainly not long enough for Caranthir’s tastes, and he knew full well that in another hundred years, his friends among the dwarves would end up aged into stone as well.

Haleth took another deep shuddering breath, slowly turning her head to face Caranthir.

“Love,” she said, and he leaned forwards to brush her gray hair out of her eyes, “I wish,” and here she had to stop, her frame shaking as she choked on her lungs.

Caranthir held her hand tight through all of it, steadying her with a palm on her shoulders, and when she regained her breath, he very nearly stopped breathing himself to hold on to her words.

“I wish,” she said again, whisper soft, “that I could stay with you forever. That,” and her hand trembled, “I didn’t have to leave you.” Her shaking hand reached up slowly, brushing Caranthir’s cheek. He held it carefully, placing a kiss in her palm, and swallowed back the cries threatening to leave his throat.

It didn’t matter in the slightest if he pleaded for her to stay; the Valar, Caranthir had long learned, were not that kind.

“I will live,” Caranthir said, his voice cracking slightly.

Haleth laughed a little wetly, and said, swallowing, “Your usual sting seems to have disappeared, Master Elf.”

Kneeling properly by her bed, Caranthir heaved a great sigh, shaking his head in mocking despair. “Alas, my wit has escaped me. I’m afraid you have stolen it away, Mistress Chieftain.”

Across the canvas walls of the makeshift home the human tribe had created for Haleth’s deathbed, the shadows of tree branches danced in the early sun. It was to be a beautiful morning.

(The rest of that day, the narrator will not account, as those precious minutes belong solely to Caranthir and Haleth, wherever she may be now.)

(Some hours later, Caranthir strode past the two human guards standing in front of the entrance to the yurt, a very final expression on his face.

For a second, the young guard on the left saw the elf’s hands falter quickly before they twisted themselves in the long sleeves of his robe. He regarded the pair in front of him for a long moment before quietly intoning, “She is gone.”

The young guard thought he perhaps saw something harden in the elf’s eyes, a solidifying of his stature that made the elf appear carved from marble.

Quietly, the guard wondered if more than one life had been lost today.)


	5. Curufin: Bittersweet

Curufinwë holds his child in his arms and thinks he will never create something so amazing ever again.

When his bright-eyed son reaches up, giggling, and grabs his finger, he finds he is remarkably fine with the prospect. 

Cradling his child in his arms that night as his exhausted mother fades in the adjacent bed, Curufinwë silently swears that he will be a better father than Fëanáro ever was. (It’s not that his father was cruel; it was just that from the very beginning, Curufinwë was never a child in Fëanáro’s eyes; he was the progeny to be molded, the son who wasn’t too much like his mother, like Maitimo, the son who wasn’t too independent, like Makalaurë and Tyelkormo, the son who wasn’t too volatile, like Carnistir.)

He swears that he will raise his child right – that Telperinquar will be more than just a shadow of his father like Curufinwë was, and whatever his son wishes to be, Curufinwë will support him fully and thoroughly. This beautiful child, he knows, softens him like no one else has managed to do before.

(When his child opens his eyes, they burn with the same fire that every member of this terrible family seems to have. Curufinwë desperately hopes that it will not burn his son out from the inside like it did to his father and his brothers.)

(That same fire burns in Telperinquar’s eyes when he stands against his father and uncle, refusing to leave Narthogrond. Even as the pair flee without the younger, Curufinwë cannot help but feel that he has kept his promise. Tyelpe has grown into his own person, and even if that brings the two to disagreement, it fills Curufinwë with a peculiar kind of pride that fuels the Fëanorian through the moments when his Oath and his anger abandon him.)

(When Curufinwë is, in the end, lying in a pool of his own blood, listening to the sound of his brothers’ agony and madness and the cries of dying elves, it is his son’s name on his lips, not his father’s.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's suddenly much shorter than I thought it was when I was writing it. hehehehe.
> 
> This ties into my sorta-headcanon that Curufin, of course, was remarkably like his father in nearly every way, but never as good. Consequently, he devoted his life to becoming more like his father. Celebrimbor was the catalyst for Curufin becoming more of his own person.
> 
> Also I can no longer write things in past tense apparently.


	6. Amrod: Duty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late, I know. I'm sorry.

When Amrod was born, he refused to breathe. The healers panicked, trying everything to get him to fill his lungs, but nothing worked.

A minute later, Amras came into the world and the two took their first breaths together. 

They never fall out of sync after that.

……

Amrod doesn’t know why people can’t understand how he and his brother’s relationship works. It’s quite simple; Nerdanel was quite right when she named them one mother-name. Ambarussa each have half of the same soul.

And if they are a little different, Amrod thinks as he watches his brother laugh with a bunch of elleths from his spot under the tree, his hands resting on an open book, no one ever said they had the same halves. 

……

His other brothers are a bit too cautious around him; he knows when they see him they feel the heat of the burning boats and the rough wood of torches in their hands. All of them, even Curufin, try to apologize privately and quietly, but Amrod doesn’t really listen.

Half of his soul is missing, and it is the half that would have cared. (It was also the half that loved his home and peace a little more than his family and his duty. Amrod won’t make the same mistake; for him, family has always come first.)

(Even so, it is a relief to fall for the last time in the name of his Oath and the Silmarils. Amrod has been absolved of his duty and now he can find his brother again.)


	7. Nerdanel: Home

Nerdanel waited for her sons to come home.

She didn’t have to wait long.

A messenger from Namo came far too soon into her husband’s absence, face hidden by a starry cloak. Statue-like, the Maia informed the elleth that her youngest son, Amras, awaited judgement in the halls of Mandos. Then, with a swirl of robes and power, they disappeared.

Nerdanel let herself sink to the floor as soon the door was closed, resting her head on the hand-carved wood and desperately missing her husband. Then, gathering her strength, she stood and began to prepare. 

(It was allowed, sometimes, for the family of the deceased to sit in on the judgment. Normally, this wasn’t necessary; elves in Valinor, after all, tended to die only in accidents or due to heartbreak; occasionally, however, a more difficult case came up. Nerdanel rather thought that this definitely counted as a more difficult case, not to mention that short of Illuvatar himself, nothing could stop her from seeing her son.)

……

Amras, after he had been allowed back in a new body under certain restrictions, was listless. He still smiled and laughed, but there was something well-hidden but hollow about the depths of his eyes that Nerdanel desperately wished to fix but had no idea where to begin. 

No, that wasn’t true; Nerdanel knew exactly what would bring back her son’s humor, and he was out of her reach entirely.

(He also refused to tell her exactly how he had died, but Nerdanel could guess by his reaction to the hearth when he had first come home.)

So instead, she found him books and puzzles and games, and for a while, it worked. Then Amras would see a flash of red hair and hear a laugh that sounded sort of familiar or get too close to a candle and feel the heat, and would slowly droop back down again. (Nerdanel prayed, rather desperately, that somehow her family would return.)

……

Fëanaro was next; her brilliant, volatile husband had burned too brightly and destroyed himself with his own carelessness. The Valar’s decree on that matter was clear; Fëanaro would not leave the Halls until Dagor Dagorath.

That was fine, Nerdanel thought. It just meant that she would have to come to him.

(Some of the other Valar had protested a living elf with a hröa residing in the Halls of Mandos, but Namo had merely smiled with his skeletal face, utterly calm behind his unearthly veil, and said nothing. She had taken that as a yes.)

Fëanaro, most of the time, was stuck in a fëa-healing sleep. It didn’t matter to Nerdanel; she had the beginnings of her family back together.

……

Tyelkormo, Carnistir, and Atarincë came next, and when the three walked together through the dark archways of the Halls to their judgment, their eyes were on the shadowy forms of their cousins and their victims, their faces pale and clearly expecting retribution.

They weren’t expecting open arms and forgiveness, which Nerdanel made sure they received; they had certainly already been doled out a fair bit of punishment by fate. (Tyelkormo was too quiet, his eyes distant and unseeing, even as he became strong enough to hunt with Lord Oromë again; Carnistir exploded more frequently than before, every action of his brothers provoking him, though Nerdanel wondered if that wasn’t just a cover for the pain ever-present in his eyes; and Atarincë told stories of his son’s brilliance, bitterness well-hidden but most certainly present.)

The five of them were healing together, though.

……

Nerdanel knew the moment when Amrod entered the Halls by the way his twin sat bolt upright, dropping the book in his hands in shock, his face draining of all color. 

She didn’t stop him from running out of their room, dodging past the fëar of all sorts of elves, scanning the crowd desperately for a head of red hair. 

(Their cries of joy when they found each other again were enough to make Nerdanel nearly cry herself.)

……

Maëdhros stood in front of the three Valar who judged the dead longer than even Fëanor had, silently watching as they discussed his fate. He knew full well he was the only elf to choose to take his own life like he had, and he was one of the first to take the life of another elf as well.

To be allowed to reunite with his mother was more than he felt he deserved, and to see Fingon again was definitely more than he had earned, but Maëdhros was going to take advantage of this opportunity he never expected to have. (He never noticed how stony Carnistir’s face became when he stood too close to Findekano, laughing at tiny things. Curvo had desperately hoped that Haleth had managed to wait for him, but she had been forced to move on.)

(At least he had his family to keep him from fading again.)

……

Nerdanel waited for Makalaure to come home for an entire Age. Even Valinor had felt the shift; the gathering darkness that had been a distant storm on the horizon was suddenly destroyed and replaced with bright sunshine and a rejuvenated feeling permeating the air. Nerdanel let herself hope that that meant her petitions, along with her nieces’ and nephews’, would be heard again.

Two days into the Fourth Age, a messenger came for Nerdanel again; this time, one of Irmo’s Maia stood in the door, face’s details hidden by an ever-shifting vale of dreams but wearing a cheerful smile nevertheless. 

“Makalaure is coming home,” they said, robes swirling gently against the floor. “He shall arrive within a week. The exile of the Noldo has been lifted.”

Nerdanel’s smile could have illuminated the depths of Utumno. “Thank you,” she said. Then, pausing, “Would you care to join us for breakfast?”

The Maia raised their eyebrow, and Nerdanel internally winced a little; she had gotten far too used to being familiar with the Maia and Valar who visited the Halls. They just smiled, though, and walked past the elleth. “So, what are we having for breakfast, then?”

Nerdanel may have begun to regret this decision.

……

When Makalaure’s ship finally pulled up to the beach, Nerdanel was waist-deep in the surf waiting for her son by herself. (Fëanaro and the rest of her children had insisted on getting their place ready for Makalaure’s arrival.) A single elf was pulling the boat up onto the beach, but her eyes were already on Makalaure, who had jumped off the ship and was smiling beatifically.

“Amil,” he said, and that was as far as he got before she pulled him into a tight hug, water lapping around their waists. 

“Amil,” he said again when she released him, “this is Elrond – my son.”

Nerdanel turned to the shorter elf awkwardly standing next to Makalaure, looking very uncomfortable both from the display of affection and the chest-height water. Taking both their arms, she smiled and said, “I believe we have a lot to catch up on.”

**Author's Note:**

> NO TIME


End file.
